10 Hottest Small-Cap Stocks of 2012

Biotechs make up most of this high-flying crowd

Everybody likes high fliers, and there’s a lot of talk about the biggest gainers year-to-date now that we’re approaching the end of another quarter.

Naturally, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and other large caps spring to mind. (Read the Top 10 S&P Stocks of 2012 list as of Q3 for all the details.) However, the reality is that smaller companies have a heck of a lot more room to run simply by virtue of their upside potential.

After all, how much bigger can a company like Apple get? It might keep growing … but does anyone expect this stock to double? How about triple? Or better yet, race up more than 600%?

That’s the kind of performance we’ve seen in some of the hottest small-cap stocks on Wall Street this year.

I ran through the top performers of the Russell 2000 index — the most popular small-cap benchmark — to exclude the microcaps but keep focused on small- to mid-sized businesses that have seen exponential growth in the past nine months. The companies are largely biotech stocks, but also include retail and housing investments. Most importantly, the returns range from 210% to an amazing 670% returns since Jan. 1.